1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telecommunications system and, in particular, to an automatic call-setup subscriber feature within a telecommunications end office.
2. Description of Related Art
As stored program controlled (SPC) switching systems have evolved, a wide variety of useful subscriber features have been developed to extend the communication capabilities such systems provide. One example is call forwarding where a customer provides a forward-to directory number to the switching system and the switching system thereafter forwards all incoming calls for the customer to the provided directory number. Other examples includes call waiting, cancel call waiting, automatic callback, and account codes. However, even with the advancement of such SPC switching systems and provision of subscriber features, manual indications by telecommunications subscribers are, at some point, needed in order to effectuate a call connection with a particular called party subscriber.
Consequently, a subscriber who needs to make an outgoing call connection on a periodic basis is inconvenienced by the fact that he or she needs to remember such a schedule and to manually effectuate an outgoing call request. Such a schedule may reflect the subscriber's personal life, such as anniversaries or birthdays of relatives. The schedule may further reflect the subscriber's business life, such as a regular telephone conference schedule, regular customer follow-up calls, etc. Accordingly, the subscriber needs to remember each and every one of those events or appointments and to inconveniently and repetitively dial directory numbers associated with the desired called party subscriber.
There is a need then for a mechanism within a serving telecommunications network to automatically and conveniently originate a call connection towards a particular called party subscriber at a predetermined time.